Professor Karen Lang
Telephone: 213.740.2311 email: klang@usc.edu
Office: VKC 346
Office hours: 11:00a.m-noon Thursday, or by appointment
Art History and Its Methods
Art History 500
Fall 2010: Thursday, 9:00a.m.-noon
Art history has drawn on neighboring fields of inquiry since the late nineteenth
century, when it became established as an autonomous academic discipline. This
introductory seminar demonstrates art history’s inherent inter-disciplinarity. It
examines source material from the fields of anthropology, history, literary
theory, and philosophy, tracing the discipline and its methods from the
eighteenth-century to the present. It is conceived as an archeology and an
overview. As such, it students to key thinkers and questions which have shaped
the field, examines the philosophical assumptions on which the discipline rests,
and analyzes the ways methods (and their corresponding theories) have
negotiated the world of art history’s objects and contexts. It also considers the
viewing relationship in the history of art.
Requirements
Coursework includes the preparation of reading materials in anticipation of each
meeting; active participation at each meeting; and initiating discussion at two
meetings. Written assignments include two, 5-7 page critical responses to the
readings and a protocol of one seminar meeting. Details on these assignments
will be given on the first day of seminar.
Books to Purchase
Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos. On the Image in Aesthetics and Art History
(Cornell University Press, 2006)
Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, eds., Critical Terms for Art History, 2nd
edition (University of Chicago Press, 2003)
Aby Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America,
trans. Michael Steinberg (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995)
Lang, AHIS 500, page 1
Schedule of Meetings
August 26: Introduction
September 2: The “Art” of Art History
 J. J. Winckelmann, Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and
Sculpture [1755] (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1989), 1-7, 33-43, 57-69, 7175.
 Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art
History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), “Chapter
One, Inventing a History of Art,” 11-46, 256-262.
 Anthony Vidler, “The ‘Art’ of Art History: Monumental Aesthetics from
Winckelmann to Quatremère de Quincy,” Oppositions 25 (Fall 1982): 53-66.
 Aby Warburg, “The Emergence of the Antique as a Stylistic Ideal in Early
Renaissance Painting” [1914] in The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, trans.
David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1999), 271-273.
September 9: Labor Day Holiday??
September 16: History, Objectivity, Fiction
 Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life,”
Thoughts Out of Season, II [1874] in The Nietzsche Reader, ed. Keith Ansell
Pearson and Duncan Large (London: Blackwell, 2006), 124-141.
 Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx” [1967] in Essential Works of
Michel Foucault, vol. 2, ed. James D. Faubion (New York: The New Press,
1998), 269-278; and “The Subject and Power” [1982] in Essential Works of
Michel Foucault, vol. 3, ed. James D. Faubion (New York: The New Press,
2000), 326-348.
 Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse. Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985 [1978]), “The Fictions of Factual
Representation,” 121-134; and “The Irrational and the Problem of
Historical Knowledge in the Enlightenment,” 135-149.
 Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos, “Introduction, Theory Begins with
Looking,” 1-11, 215-216; and “Conclusion, Encountering the Image,” 179198, 269-275.
Lang, AHIS 500, page 2
September 23: Art History’s Conceptual and Philosophical Underpinnings
 Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”
[1784], rpt. in What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and
Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. James Schmidt (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), 58-64.
 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment [1790], trans. Werner S. Pluhar
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), 3-54, 57-65, 68-69, 85-95,
97-126, 209-214, 225-232 (167-212, 214-220, 223, 237-244, 244-266, 337-341,
351-356).
 Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos, “Chapter Two, The Dialectics of Decay:
Rereading the Kantian Subject,” 41-87, 227-243; and “Afterword, Toward
an Aesthetic Way of Knowing,” 199-214, 275-278.
September 30: no seminar meeting
October 7: Form
 Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History [1915], trans. M. D. Hottinger
(New York, 1950), 1-23, 73-75, 124-126, 155-159, 196-197, 226-237.
 Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos, “Chapter One, Points of View in
Panofsky’s Early Theoretical Essays,” 12-40, 216-227.
 Whitney Davis, “Formalism in Art History,” in Encyclopedia of Aesthetics,
vol. II, ed. Michael Kelly (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 221225.
 Clement Greenberg, “Towards a Newer Laocoön” [1940], repr. in Pollock
and After. The Critical Debate, 2nd ed., ed. Francis Frascina (New York:
Harper & Row, 2000 [1985]), 61-70.
 Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting” [1960], repr. in Clement
Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 4, ed. John O’Brian
(Chicago and London, 1993), 85-93.
 Leo Steinberg, “Other Criteria,” in Other Criteria. Confrontations with
Twentieth-Century Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 55-91,
406-408.
 Yve-Alain Bois, Painting as Model (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993
[1990]), “Introduction: Resisting Blackmail,” xi-xxx, 259-262 and
“Kahnweiler’s Lesson,” 65-97, 280-293.
Lang, AHIS 500, page 3
October 14: Style
 Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry [1901], trans. Rolf Winkes (Rome: G.
Bretschneider, 1985), “The Main Characteristics of the Late Roman
Kunstwollen,” 223-234.
 Alois Riegl, Problems of Style. Foundations of a History of Ornament [1893],
trans. Evelyn Kain (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992),
“Introduction,” 3-13 and “The Geometric Style,” 14-40.
 Alois Riegl, “The Place of the Vapheio Cups in the History of Art” [1900]
in The Vienna School Reader, ed. Christopher Wood (New York: Zone
Books, 2003), 105-127.
 Willibald Sauerländer, “From Stilus to Style: Reflections on the Fate of a
Notion,” Art History 6, no. 3 (September 1983): 253-270.
 Ernst Gombrich, “Norm and Form. The Stylistic Categories of Art
History and their Origins in Renaissance Ideals” [1961] in Norm and Form:
Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (London: Phaidon, 1971), 81-98, 149.
 Meyer Schapiro, “Style” [1953] in Aesthetics Today, rev. ed., ed. Morris
Philipson and Paul Gudel (New York: New American Library, 1980
[1961]), 137-171.
 Kurt W. Forster, “Critical History of Art or Transvaluation of Values?”
New Literary History 3, no. 3 (Spring 1972): 459-470.
 Carlo Ginzburg, “Style as Inclusion, Style as Exclusion,” in Picturing
Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones and Peter Galison (New
York: Routledge, 1998), 27-54.
 Recommended: Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos, “Chapter One, Points of
View in Panofsky’s Early Theoretical Essays,” 12-40, 216-227 (review
October 5th); and “Chapter Four, The Experience of Time and the Time of
History: Riegl’s Age Value and Benjamin’s Aura,” 136-178, 255-269.
October 21: Symbolic Form
 Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man. An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human
Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 1-41.
 Aby Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America,
trans. Michael Steinberg (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).
 Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos, “Chapter 3, Goethe, Warburg, Cassirer:
Symbolic Form as Orientation,” 88-135, 244-255.
 Recommended: Edgar Wind, “Warburg’s Concept of Kulturwissenschaft
and its Meaning for Aesthetics” [1931], in The Eloquence of Symbols. Studies
in Humanist Art (Oxford University Press, 1983), 21-35.
Lang, AHIS 500, page 4
October 28: no seminar meeting
November 4: Marxism and the Social History of Art
 Karl Marx, The Grundrisse [1857-58], ed. and trans. David McLellan (New
York: Harper & Row, 1971), “General Introduction,” 16-46.
 Karl Marx, Capital [1867], abridged ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), “Commodities,” 13-50 and “Exchange,” 51-57.
 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Communist Manifesto [1848], “Bourgeoisie
and Proletarians,” 8-26 and “Proletarians and Communists,” 27-39.
 Timothy J. Clark, “The Conditions of Artistic Creation,” [1974] in Critical
Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement, ed. Derwent May
(London: Harper Collins, 2001), 248-253.
 Timothy J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the Art of Manet and
his Followers, rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999
[1985]), “Introduction,” 3-22, 271-272 and “Olympia’s Choice,” 79-146,
281-297.
 Griselda Pollock, “Vision, Voice and Power: Feminist Art History and
Marxism” [1982], excerpt in Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical
Texts, ed. Francis Frascina and Jonathan Harris (New York: IconEditions,
1992), 28-31.
 Timothy J. Clark, Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), “Introduction,” 1-13, 409.
November 11: Semiotics (Structuralism)
 Ferdinand de Saussure, “The Linguistic Sign” [1912], in Semiotics: An
Introductory Anthology, ed. Robert E. Innis (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985), 24-46.
 Roland Barthes, “The Structuralist Activity” [1963], in Critical Essays, ed.
and trans. Richard Howard (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press, 1972), 213-220.
 Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, “Semiotics and Art History,” The Art
Bulletin 73, no. 2 (June 1991), 174-208.
 Rosalind Krauss “The Motivation of the Sign,” in Picasso and Braque: A
Symposium, ed. Lynn Zelevansky (New York: Museum of Modern Art
and Harry N. Abrams, 1992), 261-286.
Lang, AHIS 500, page 5


Rosalind Krauss, “Chapter Two, Analytic Space: futurism and
constructivism,” in Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1981 [1977]), 39-67, 290-292.
Optional: Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory. An Introduction (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1983), “Chapter Three, Structuralism and
Semiotics,” 91-126, 220-221.
November 18: Postmodernism (Poststructuralism)
 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” [1968] in Image, Music, Text,
trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 142-148.
 Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” [1969], in Aesthetics, Method, and
Epistemology, vol. 2, ed. James D. Faubion (New York: The New Press,
1998), 205-222.
 Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” [1979], in The AntiAesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (New York: The
New Press, 1998 [1983]), 31-42.
 Craig Owens, “The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of
Postmodernism,” Parts I and II [1980] in Beyond Recognition:
Representation, Power, and Culture, ed. Scott Bryson, et al, (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 52-87.
 Optional: Andreas Huyssen, “Mapping the Postmodern” [1984], in After
the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986), 178-221, 235-240.
 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory. An Introduction (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1983), “Chapter Four, Post-Structuralism,” 127-150,
221.
November 25: Feminism, Essentialism, and Queering Art History
 Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” [1971]
in Women, Art, Power and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1988),
93-116.
 Grisela Pollock, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity” [198x] in The
Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude and
Mary D. Garrard (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 245-267.
 Margaret D. Carroll, “The Erotics of Absolutism: Rubens and the
Mystification of Sexual Violence,” Representations, 24 (Winter 1989): 3-30.
Available through JStor (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928464)
Lang, AHIS 500, page 6


Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2nd
ed. (New York: Routledge, 1999 [1990]), “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire,”
3-44, 193-202.
E.A. (Elizabeth A.) Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics
of Bodies (New York: Routledge, 1995), ”Chapter 3, Sexual Difference and
the Problem of Essentialism,” 45-58, 233 and “Chapter 11, Re-figuring
Lesbian Desire,” 173-186, 244-245.
December 2: Anthropology and Art
 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, (New York:
Basic Books Publishers, 1973), “Chapter 1, Thick Description: Toward an
Interpretive Theory of Culture,” 3-30.
 Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1975) “Printing and the People,” 189-226,
326-336.
 Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford, UK:
Clarendon Press, 1998), “Chapter 1, The Problem Defined,” 1-11, “Chapter
2, The Theory of the Art Nexus,” 12-27 and “Chapter 7, The Distributed
Person,” 96-154.
 Cecily J. Hillsdale, “Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for
a French Bride,” The Art Bulletin, 87, no. 3 (September 2005): 458-483.
Lang, AHIS 500, page 7